John Kerry says sarin use boosts case for military strike; says Assad 'has joined list with Hitler and Hussein'

SECRETARY of State John Kerry said the US has evidence of sarin gas use in Syria and said &quot;the case gets stronger by the day'' for a military attack.

AFPSeptember 2, 201310:59am

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October 1st 2015

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SECRETARY of State John Kerry said the US has evidence of sarin gas use in Syria and said &quot;the case gets stronger by the day'' for a military attack.

A day after President Barack Obama stepped back from his threat to launch an attack, Mr Kerry said in a series of interviews on the Sunday news shows that the administration learned of the sarin use within the past 24 hours through samples of hair and blood provided to Washington by first responders in Damascus.

Mr Kerry also said he was confident that Congress will give Mr Obama its backing for an attack against Syria, but he also said the president has authority to act on his own if Congress doesn't give its approval.

While Mr Kerry stopped short of saying Mr Obama was committed to such a course even if lawmakers refuse to authorize force, he did tell ABC's "This Week'' that "we are not going to lose this vote.''

The secretary of state added that Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad "has now joined the list of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein" in deploying chemical weapons against his population.

In a speech in the White House Rose Garden on Saturday Mr Obama said he had decided to ask the US Congress to authorise military action against Syria because it was important for American democracy to win the support of lawmakers.

The decision represents a significant gamble for Mr Obama, who has an estranged relationship with lawmakers, especially Republicans, and he risks suffering the same fate as British Prime Minister David Cameron, who lost his own vote on authorising military action in parliament.

Kerry says Sarin used in Syria attackSource:AP

Mr Obama said that Congressional leaders had agreed to schedule a debate as soon as lawmakers return from their summer break. That is not due to take place until September 9. There was no immediate suggestion that the House of Representatives and the Senate would be called back into session early.

What is Syria's strike capability?

Ahead of Mr Obama's comments Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi said the army is ready to retaliate after potential foreign strikes against the country.

"The Syrian army is fully ready, its finger on the trigger to face any challenge or scenario that they want to carry out," he said in a written statement aired on state television on Saturday.

The comments prompted defense analysts to look at the seriousness of the Syria's threat of retaliation.

Edward Hunt, a senior analyst at IHS Jane's, told CNN that a US attack would likely use weapons fired from long range, such as Tomahawk cruise missiles, "to avoid anyone having to get within the range of Syrian systems."

The Tomahawk can be fired with precision accuracy at targets from as much as 1,000 miles away.

The Syrian army has at least 20 P-800 Oniks/Yakhont anti-ship missiles with a range of between 100 to 300 kilometres, Mr Hunt said.

He told CNN Syria is also believed to have around 500 Scud missiles but they are not designed to be fired at moving targets such as US warships located in the Mediterranean.

However Shiraz Maher, a senior fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at Kings College London, told CNN that the danger posed by Syria's forces was overstated and that any threat of defensive action by Mr Assad was "saber-rattling".

Obama's change of heart

Barack Obama SyriaSource:AP

There had been growing expectations in Washington that military action could even happen as soon as this weekend, but Mr Obama's decision means that will now not happen.

Nevertheless, the president also said that he had decided that military force should be the price for what the United States says is the "undeniable" use of chemical weapons by Syria.

"Our military has positioned assets in the region," Mr Obama said. "We are prepared to strike whenever we choose."

President Obama had been ready to order a military strike against Syria, with or without Congress' blessing. But on Friday night, he suddenly changed his mind.

Senior administration officials describing Obama's about-face offered a portrait of a president who began to wrestle with his own decision - at first internally, then confiding his views to his chief of staff, and finally summoning his aides for an evening session in the Oval Office to say he'd had a change of heart.

Syria Protests White HouseSource:AP

UK PM David Cameron tweets his support

British Prime Minister David Cameron said overnight he understood Mr Obama's decision to ask the US Congress to authorise military action against Syria, after his own parliament blocked him from involving British forces in any strikes.

"I understand and support Barack Obama's position on Syria," the British prime minister said in a tweet.

Mr Cameron suffered the biggest defeat of his three years in office on Thursday when lawmakers in the House of Commons voted 285 to 272 against the government's call for action to punish the Syrian regime's alleged use of chemical weapons.

The opposition Labour party had called for "compelling" evidence that Assad's regime had gassed its own people before launching an attack.

Mr Cameron pledged to respect parliament's wishes. Mr Obama told Cameron in a phone call on Friday that he "fully respected" the decision, according to Downing Street.

Syria UNSource:AFP

But Mr Obama now risks suffering the same fate as the British leader.

Meanwhile France will wait for its parliament and the US Congress to consider possible military action on Syria before making a decision about whether to launch strikes against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, President Francois Hollande's office says.

The comments from an official in the French president's office came as the world reacted to word from President Barack Obama that he believes the United States should respond with force over an alleged chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime, but that he has decided to put the issue before the US Congress first.

UN vows 'impartial' study as investigators leave Syria

Also overnight, the United Nations vowed to give an "impartial and credible" assessment on whether chemical arms were used in Syria as tensions rose over a possible military strike.

But UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said no conclusion can be given on whether banned poison gas had been unleashed in Syria until laboratory tests are completed.

The UN inspectors have a mandate to report on whether banned chemical weapons have been used in the 29-month-old war in Syria - particularly during an August 21 attack on an opposition area near Damascus - but not to say who carried it out. Mr Obama said he is prepared to take military action without waiting for the UN, which he slammed as "paralysed" over the situation.

The inspectors have taken the samples to The Hague and they will be moved to two laboratories in Europe.

According to diplomats, Mr Ban told ambassadors from Britain, France, the United States, China and Russia on Friday that the team would need two weeks to complete a first analysis.

Putin says US claim 'nonsense'; Iran warns against attack

Meanwhile, the head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards warned that a US strike on Syria would trigger reactions beyond the borders of Tehran's key regional ally.

"The fact that the Americans believe that military intervention will be limited to within Syrian borders is an illusion; it will provoke reactions beyond that country," the ISNA news agency quoted commander Mohammad Ali Jafari as saying.

"Just as US interventions in the Islamic world (Afghanistan, Iraq) have bolstered extremism, so will an aggression on Syria reinforce extremism and, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, its results will be pain, massacre and the exodus of the innocent population," he added.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed as "nonsense" American claims that the Syria regime has used chemical weapons and he has demanded that the United States provide proof. A US intelligence report on Friday said the Syrian regime was responsible for chemical attacks that killed 1429 people, including at least 426 children.

Mr Putin rejected communications intercepts as evidence, saying that they cannot be used to take "fundamental decisions" like using military force on Syria.

"Syrian government troops are on the offensive and have surrounded the opposition in several regions. In these conditions, to give a trump card to those who are calling for a military intervention is utter nonsense.

"Regarding the position of our American colleagues, friends, who affirm that government troops used weapons of mass destruction, in this case chemical weapons, and say that they have proof, well, let them show it to the United Nations inspectors and the Security Council," he said.